LAKE CHARLES ADAPTED TO MANUFACTORIES - CALCASIEU PARISH, LA
Contributed by Margaret Rentrop Moore
Source: Southwest Louisiana Biographical & Historical by William
Henry Perrin; published 1891 page 153 - 155.
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LAKE CHARLES ADAPTED TO MANUFACTORIES.-Lake Charles has the best of
facilities for becoming a manufacturing town. It has one trunk line railroad,
and will soon have another. These will cause local roads to be built to other
points. Even now there is one contemplated from the Sulphur Mine to tap the
Southern Pacific some dozen miles or so west of the mine. Lake Charles has
already pretty good water transportation, and when Calcasieu Pass is improved
and deepened as designed, it will have the advantages of both railroad and water
transportation. These combined advantages must result in great benefit and
wealth to the town if her people continue to exert themselves as they are
now doing, and keep the ark moving." With her vast lumber interests, now
aggregating millions of dollars annually, and to which should be added rice
mills, sugar refineries, cotton gins and presses, oil mills and other factories
that will necessarily follow, then will the hum of industry echo and reecho
across your beautiful little lake. When you hear of a firm or company who are
desirous of starting a manufacturing enterprise in your town, don't put your
heads together and figure on how much you can squeeze out of them for a location
for their establishment, but donate five, ten, or twenty acres if that will
secure it. If a manufacturing enterprise is established in the town, employing a
hundred hands, with a monthly pay roll of say $5000, who will be more benefited
than the business men of Lake Charles? Why, the matter is so plain that "even a
fool should not err therein." The editor of the American strikes the key note to
the situation when he says:
Facts and figures continue to show and prove what we have before repeated,
that right in the South, in the midst of the cotton fields, is the place for
successful cotton manufacturing. Experience has proven this beyond question.
There is not a factory in the South, where it is properly managed, but what
is paying a good per cent. on the investment. Ex-Governor Lowry, of Mississippi,
makes the statement, that the product of Mississippi mills at Wesson
is sold in Boston in competition with goods of all grades manufactured within
forty miles of Boston. It must be remembered, too, that these mills are so
situated that they have but one line of shipment and have no chance of
competition in freights. This experience is in line with that of other mills in
Georgia and Alabama. With such experience there is no wonder that factories in
the North are hunting up good situations in the South where they can move their
mills.
When we read that a manufacturing establishment up North, employing,
perhaps, one thousand hands, desires to move South, we conclude at once that the
principal owners of the factory have investigated the matter, and the
information obtained led to this conclusion. The time is now upon us when the
cotton must be manufactured in or near the great cotton region, if done for
profit. Already the foothold of Southern mills is so firm that the New England
mills can not compete with them. The Southern mills have no long stretches of
freight to meet; they have a climate which favors the work, making it a less
cost for living and a less cost for manufacturing. This is shown in the per
cent. of profits which is told annually to the world, and which reveals the fact
that the Southern mills have largely the advantage over those of the North.
The business men of manufacturing interests up North are alive to the times,
and are trying to keep pace with the changes that are being made. He sees that
he can now make favorable terms with some live young Southern city by getting a
bonus to remove his mill, and he seizes the opportunity, recognizing the fact
that the day may not be far distant when such opportunities will not come.
The moving of mills South and the building of new ones and enlarging others
has created a demand for this kind of machinery, and this will lead to the
moving of iron mills South, as there will doubtless be advantages held by such
mills because of their nearness to the cotton mills. There must be mills for the
manufacturing of this machinery, right near the Southern cotton mills, where
it is wanted. The advantage that one such mill will have over those far distant
will be so great that other factories will follow or new ones be built. Just so
with the great machine works that are manufacturing machinery for the saw-
mills that have so largely increased in the South during the last few years. It
is evident these machine shops must come nearer the mills. Time in this fast age
has much to do with these matters, as well as the long haul of freights. We
noticed the arrival in our city on the 17th of April of the machinery for the
new ice factory in this city. This machinery was shipped on February 26 from New
York, and shows the result of long distance. There is to-day not a more inviting
field in the South for factories than in Lake Charles.
The following timely hints are from the same source as quoted above, and are
worthy of earnest consideration: We have mentioned the subject of a rice mill in
a former issue, but we look upon it as so important that we again call
attention to this subject. We believe there is no other city in the United
States where a rice mill on a large scale, would pay as well as in the city of
Lake Charles.
In the first place it could be built cheaper here than in almost any other
place. We have the finest building material in the world, cheaper than in almost
any other place. We have the finest building material in the world, cheaper than
in almost any other place. Our lumber is of the best and cheapest. Our brick
will bear comparison with any brick on the continent, and can be furnished on
the gronnd in any quantity as cheap as any place. The cost of operating a
mill will be cheaper per than in most other places, by reason of the cheapness
of fuel. Our saw-mill men will furnish fuel free to any factory or mill that
will operate here.
Then, in the next place, rough rice can be delivered here cheaper than in
any other city where large rice mills are now in operation. It is estimated that
Calcasieu parish will produce at least four hundred thousand barrels of rough
rice this year, and the industry is but fairly begun. It can be delivered here
for about eighty-five cents per barrel less than it can in New Orleans. Then the
milled product can be shipped from here to the consumer as cheap or cheaper
than from any other rice mills in the South. When the K. C., W. & G. Railway
reaches Alexandria, which it will undoubtedly do this fall, rice can be shipped
from here direct to St. Louis and nearly direct to Kansas City. Then, in the
next place, the bran and the polish would find a ready market at the [nil] to
the farmers and stock men. Taking all these things into consideration, it
looks to us as if a rice mill on a large scale-say of the capacity of five
hundred barrels per day-would pay enormous profits at once. Where is the man
with capital who is willing to engage in this enterprise ? We feel sure that our
citizens are ready to encourage this enterprise heartily, for it will be
admitted by all that while a mill would be greatly profitable to its owners, it
would at the same time be valuable to the city and the country. It would give us
an increase of population and wealth. It would give us a market for our rough
rice at home. It would give us cheap feed. It would add to our resources in many
ways, and benefit us for all time to come. Let us have a rice mill.